Top Five Reasons Why You Must Act to Save the Tiger

1. Tiger Supports Livelihood

Tourism is the world’s biggest industry. On the ecotour front, the tiger is a star attraction for not just the Indian tourists but also for the people coming from other countries. There are foriegners who come to India only to have a glimpse of the tiger and then there are others who return more than once for another such opportunity.

The look in the eyes of a canter that has just come out of a National Park after sighting a tiger is very different from the look and feel of a canter that could not sight any. This eventually impacts the tourist influx thus impacting everyone from the tour companies to the local tour guides. A healthy tiger population thus supports livelihoods as well.

2. Tiger Protects Genetic Diversity

Tiger is an umbrella species. It’s conservation automatically ensures the conversation of a large number of flora and fauna and entire ecosystems. Thus, a properly planned tiger conservation programme is actually a programme to protect and save large number of species.

However, a dwindeling tiger population and news of declining number of tigers only implies an immediate threat to what is remaining of our natural ecosystems. A healthy tiger population thus also protects all that remains of our natural ecosystems.

3. Tiger brings Rain

A tiger is a both a guardian and an indicator of a healthy forests. A healthy forests. Few understand that a live bird or insect is far more important to the economy than a dead one. A live tiger brings rain – a dead one brings nothing but devastation.

4. Tigers Prevent Climate Change

A healthy tiger population lives in large forests - which are nothing but the natural sinks of Carbon. The more tigers we can save, the more healthier reserves we have, larger is our national carbon sink. A tiger should therefore be entitled to carbon credits in the form of protection.

And last, but never the least…

5. Tiger is a symbol of our National Pride

This is what India.gov.in has to say about our National Animal:

The magnificent tiger, Panthera tigris is a striped animal. It has a thick yellow coat of fur with dark stripes. The combination of grace, strength, agility and enormous power has earned the tiger its pride of place as the national animal of India. Out of eight races of the species known, the Indian race, the Royal Bengal Tiger, is found throughout the country except in the north-western region and also in the neighbouring countries, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

Courtesy:- Delhi Green

Tiger and Tourism in India

There is a movement a foot in INDIA to severely limit and even ban tourism in the core area of tiger reserves. "Tourists are to be banned from the heartlands of the 37 national tiger reserves in India amid fears that their presence is hastening the demise of an increasingly endangered species," quoted a recent news story. "Tourism creates a disturbance through vehicles, noise pollution, garbage and the need to provide facilities," said the government-run National Tiger Conservation Authority, alarmed that the tiger population has plummeted from 3642 in 2002 to just 1411 last year. There is no doubt that there needs to be a plan that will make tiger conservation and tiger tourism complementary and sustainable. And there is no doubt that some tourist zones are overcrowded at times and greater discipline is needed to control the drivers and guides who become bug-eyed steroidal cowboys when a tiger is sighted. But to imply that tourism has caused the plummet in tiger numbers is misleading and unfair.

•The tourism industry provides jobs and income to countless individuals who might otherwise be tempted to seek money from other sources. The hotel and lodge industry has an immense financial stake in the survival of the tiger. The millions of dollars invested in the lodges surrounding Ranthambhore, Kanha, and Bandhavgarh would dry up overnight if there were no tigers.

•The two tiger reserves in India that have lost every single tiger, Sariska and Panna, had minimum tourism. Bandhavgarh, on the other hand, possibly the most tourist-intense tiger park, has its tiger population flourishing in the core tourist area.

•Vehicles driving around with tourists are, in effect, anti-poaching patrols, often in the notable absence of official patrolling. Word of mouth among drivers and guides is an excellent source of keeping tabs on where the tigers are and where they are not.

•Tourism could and should be used in support of tiger conservation. The Mountain Travel Sobek Save The Tiger trip I lead has taken 146 people into tiger country and generated a significant amount of money which has been put back into the field in India and Nepal for tiger protection programs.

•Many people who have seen a tiger in the wild have become fierce tiger advocates and continue to support tiger conservation efforts.

•Tourism is not killing tigers. Tigers are being killed by the loss of habitat, poachers, wildlife crime syndicates, and the perpetuation of the myth of the efficacy of tiger medicines thousands of miles away.

Source: The Fund For The Tiger Newsletter, Summer 2009